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2014 Traffic Safety Factsheet OLDER POPULATION

In 2014 there were 5,709 people 65 and older killed and an estimated 221,000 injured in motor vehicle traffic crashes. Older people made up 17 percent of all traffic fatalities and 9 percent of all people injured in traffic crashes during the year. Compared to 2013, there was very little change, less than 1 percent, in the numbers of both fatalities and those injured in the older age group. In 2014 some 46.2 million people — about 14.5 percent of the total U.S. resident population — were 65 and older. Over the past decade the fatality rate per 100,000 population of older people has steadily declined from 17.8 in 2005 to 12.3 in 2014. Figure 1 shows motor vehicle traffic fatality rates according to age groups.